Homestuck: Act 5
The fifth act of Homestuck is the current act. It opens with a large story arc, providing plot exposition on the trolls, the intricacies of their culture, and the events that took place before, during, and after their session of Sburb. The events that take in place in the troll arc of Act 5 are as follows. * We zoom in on a new planet, which is revealed to be Alternia, the planet where the Trolls live. * As a new adventure known as Hivebent starts, we come across a young Troll standing in his respiteblock: Karkat Vantas. His interests are strikingly similar to John's. * Karkat begins examining his Respiteblock , which includes a Recuperacoon filled with Sopor slime and several movie posters of the romantic comedy nature. He captchalogues his Sickle into his Sylladex with the Encryption Modus, leaving behind a card vault. He picks up the card vault again with the Encryption Modus, which creates a heavier card vault that falls and punches a hole in the floor. Grumbling is heard from below, most likely Karkat's Custodian . * Karkat picks up a thick black programming manual entitled "~ATH: A HANDBOOK FOR THE IMMINENTLY DECEASED". * Karkat goes outside and finds himself in the exact situation that John finds himself in when he goes out, which is the blandness of the neighbourhood. He notes that his species is encouraged to become architecturally adept from a young age, and we are exposed to Karkat's disdain for poetry. * Karkat goes back inside to examine a magazine (Game Grub) and a DVD (The Thresh Prince of Bel-Air) on his computer desk before seeing an incoming chat message from terminallyCapricious. This seems to upset him. * TC annoys Karkat by asking what he's up to and blathering about miracles. TC also claims to be Karkat's "BeSt MoThErFuCkIn FrIeNd". He also mentions that twinArmageddons is planning something that seems to be a pretty big deal. * TC is name is revealed to be Gamzee Makara. The story then switches to his point of view. We see him in his Respiteblock, which is filled with bike horns, pie tins, juggling pins, posters depicting clowns of a grim persuasion, a Recuperacoon, several bottles of faygo, and a unicycle. * Gamzee capachalogues a bottle of Faygo and his husktop computer with his Miracle Fetch Modus. No one knows how it works, but it sure as hell is trippy. Not that Gamzee cares- he prefers to think of things as "mOtHeRfUcKiN mIrAcLeS". He tries his unicycle once more, only to fall of into a pile of horns. * Gamzee picks up a juggling club (his Strife Specibus being clubKind) and prepares to go out. It is dangerous to leave unarmed. * Gamzee leaves his Respiteblock. Outside of his hive is a beach. Soon after he leaves the hive, Gamzee receives a message from gallowsCalibrator. He does a bit of praying to his "Mirthful Messiahs" before attempting to retrieve his husktop. Instead of retrieving the husktop, the Miracle Modus ejects the bottle of Faygo far out to sea. * Gamzee tries to just grab his husktop from his sylladex. It surprisingly works, and he answers gC. She makes fun of his name, by asking him if he "w4nts to pl4y g4m3z3z" with her. He doesn't pick up on the joke and agrees, but asks if they can play later, cause he's waiting for the "old goat" - most likely his Custodian. It is suggested at this point that gC doesn't have a Custodian. Gamzee suggests gC asks Karkat to play, but she states that it would be horrible, on account of all the bitching and moaning. Gamzee then spaces out. He asks gC if she's ever seen the ocean, but quickly rephrases and asks if she's smelled it. * Karkat fiddles with ~ATH , a programming language available on both Earth and Alternia . He looks at a file twinArmaggedons (who is said to be obnoxiously good at hacking) sent him, which is supposed to make the user's computer explode upon usage. * Karkat talks with tA over Trollian, the subject being a game tA wants him to play. tA explains that it he adapted it to some technology that apocalypseArisen found in some ruins. tA reveals that the game will be divided intoteams, and that gC was to be Karkat's group leader, which he immediately flips his shit over. They get into an immature fight and agree to delete it from their logs. * Karkat hears some grumbling downstairs from a "crabby customer", later revealed to be his Custodian. He does not relish this encounter, and decides to put it off. * The view switches over to Terezi Pyrope a.k.a. gallowsCalibrator/gC. Her interests include colorful dragon plushies known as scalemates and brutal Alternian law. She was revealed to not always have been blind, but apparently lost her sight in some kind of extreme Live Action Role Playing accident. She also seems to spend a lot of time scribbling on the walls. She is the leader of the Red team which is comprised of Karkat and four others. The Blue team will compose of the remaining six Trolls. * Terezi begins LARPing, playing out an Alternian courtblock drama, which is heavily one-sided as is the Alternian legal way. She acts out a mock trial with her stuffed "Scalemates", viciously interrogating and executing one Senator Lemonsnout, hanging it from the tree in which she resides. * After a lot of tomfoolery, Terezi concludes her session by hanging the 'defendant'. She promptly picks up her walking cane, being that her Strife Specibus is caneKind, She begins recruiting members for the Red Team. When she talks to Karkat, he claims he is now the leader of the Red Team. This leads to an arguement, even less so due to Terezi's passive approach to the entire conversation. * We jump ahead some time, where Karkat, now revealed to be the Knight of Blood, arrives in the Land of Pulse and Haze, his hive coated in Terezi's doodles and missing a wall. He has alchemized the Homes Smell Ya Later as well as some other cool stuff. He talks to Terezi again, since he's really clueless, and he is enraged (as usual) about the fact that his Load Gaper is in a very inconvenient and inappropriate place. * We then jump to the near past at the trolls' blue Frog Temple (which has six surrounding pillars, most likely due to the six players in the Blue team), where apocalypseArisen has decapitated the frog and thrown its head into the surrounding lagoon out of boredom. * Next, we follow the Faygo bottle that Gamzee lost. It washes up on the shore somewhere far away. A sharp-dressed troll with an Aquarius ring finds it, much to his distaste. * We go back to Karkat, travelling back to before he entered the medium. He engages his Custodian aka Lusus Naturae, in Grief, the troll equivalent of Strife. * We switch views to Sollux Captor, also known as twinArmageddons. His split personality causes him to lash out at the players, so we switch over to this kooky broad, but then back to Sollux when he calms down. * Sollux uses his psychic ability to chuck shuriken through his beehouse mainframes accidentally. AA continues destruction on the Frog Temple, while Karkat activates the Mobius Double Reacharound Virus, calling Sollux's bluff. We watch as both Karkat's and Gamzee's Lusii die. * Sollux laments from his stupid choice to give Karkat the virus code and begins deleting the ones he has on his computer. He comes across a virus he copied from an obscure server a while ago that will lead to the creation of a "time-travelling indestructible demon". * Sollux's lusus begins making a ruckus, much to his dismay. AA has appeared, floating outside Sollux's communal hive stem, where Sollux's lusus is chained up. * The view switches over to GrimAuxiliatrix, who apparently lives out in the desert next to another frog temple in a block that is nearly identical to Jade's house. She is riding her lusus, a giant virgin Mother Grub. * We stop being gA and become AdiosToreador whose real name is Tavros Nitram. It is revealed that he is a paraplegic who was injured after a bout of more serious roleplaying, similar to how Terezi was blinded. He begins playing Fiduspawn with his lusus. * Tavros' game comes to a wholesome conclusion. He rolls up his ramp and climbs into his Recuperacoon like Karkat did, for no real reason. After a long clean-up, he picks up his jousting lance, a weapon reflective of his lanceKind Strife Specibus. Tavros hopes to one day be recruited by dreaded imperial Cavalreapers. Tavros' room is decorated by a poster of his idol, Pupa Pan. * In the future, gA would chainsaw his legs off, but out of his best interest. Tavros would then be fitted for robolegs by a guy who likes to build robots. * Tavros gets pestered by arachnidsGrip, then goes into a long chat with Gamzee, proceeding to have an awful rap-off with him. We switch back to Terezi, who heads outside as the meteors descend to find her unhatched lusus, which sits in its egg on a giant scale. The lusus egg sits on one side, acting as a counterweight to the skull of a Mother Grub placed over a black button. * Terezi reveals that when she slept, her unhatched dragon lusus spoke to her in her dreams, teaching her how to see without sight. It was also revealed that Terezi's Dream Self resides on Prospit. * Terezi's Lusus hatches, causing the doomsday clock to start. The Lusus is immediately killed by a meteor, much to Terezi's dismay. * apocalypseArisen is introduced as Aradia Megido. Her Lusus is already dead, causing her to take up residence in some familiar ruins. She claims to have tricked Sollux into helping her create Sgrub. * Aradia uses her Ouija Fetch Modus to retrieve a familiar Crosbytop Computer, and starts a conversation with gA, in which they discuss the coming apocalypse. She then has a conversation with Sollux we already saw, telling him that Sgrub will destroy the world. She then "goes up", appearing at the top of Sollux's hive, telekinetically levitating Sollux's lusus. She initiates a conversation with aG. * Aradia talks to Sollux again, convincing him to look out the window then putting him into a deep sleep. When he wakes, he gets some mind honey in his mouth, his psychic powers go ballistic and he destroys the top portion of his block, presumably killing his Bicyclops in the process. * We switch back over to arsenicCatnip again, whose real name is Nepeta Leijon. We learn that she is interested in hunting and not-so-extreme roleplaying. Her cave (considered a hive), is littered with pelts of great beasts and there are tons of doodles on the walls. * Nepeta has a one-sidedly playful conversation with Karkat, who is still seeking members for the Red Team. She is eager to join, however she must ask someone else's permission. * CentaursTesticle tells Nepeta that she can't be on the same team as Tavros, which mildly angers her. She relays this to Tavros, who accidentally crushes Tinkerbull under his wheelchair. * In a flashback, we see how Tavros lost the use of his legs while participating in a role playing session known as Flarp. AG, after concocting an unfair, unwinnable scenario for Tavros, uses her mind-controlling powers to manipulate him into thinking he can fly (just like Pupa Pan), forcing him to leap off the side of a cliff, paralyzing his legs. * Back in the present, aG and Karkat aggressively troll each other, Karkat taunting her about her jealousy towards Terezi, and aG manipulating Karkat with her mind powers. * The view switches over to cT, only to jump over briefly to cuttlefishCuller then to Aradia. She comes across her now destroyed rural hive. She begins a session of Sgrub with Nepeta and one other player. They advance through Tier One Prototyping, enter the Medium, and advance to Tier Two Prototyping. Aradia is revealed to have been dead for some time now. We are all completely blown away by this stunning revelation. Aradia tells Nepeta that she is dead due to ignoring the advice of a friend and making a few bad choices. She also mentions that she wants Nepeta to keep this a secret, and Nepeta promises to do just that. * The view switches over to arachnidsGrip, her real name being Vriska Serket. Her room is full of scattered, shattered magic 8-balls and drawings. She admires a drawing of her Flarp character, which is actually just herself in a fancy costume. * After stepping on a die, she picks up her Fluorite Octet (her Strife Specibus being diceKind). Historically, these weapons were wielded by a now-extinct group of deadly marauders known as Gamblignants. * Vriska heads to her computer, only to get bugged by gA. She ignores it but someone else pesters her, someone with no chumhandle and white text. He says he's exploited her. Vriska seems completely uninterested. She switches over back to gA, and they discuss the lusi's deaths. * Vriska goes to check on her lusus, passing by one of her completed Doomsday Devices that she built for a member of the nautical aristocracy with the help of another troll with technological prowess. The lusus is still alive and well, although Vriska isn't quite sure if this is a good thing or not due to the difficulties of feeding it. * The view switches back to centaursTesticle, who happens to live in the same neighborhood as Vriska. His real name is Equius Zahhak. Equius seems to aspire to one day join the ranks of the Archeradicators, despite his archery not even reaching subpar. His room is filled with robots and bows, broken or not to his (½)bowKind and fistKind [[Strife Specibus#Strife Deck|Strife Specibus]]. * We follow Equius as he does a few things such as keeping track of his Lusus, Aurthour, drinking some milk, getting aggravated, breaking a bow accidentally and chatting with Gamzee. * Equius also has a conversation with Vriska about him delivering a present for Aradia to Vriska's hive. He then states outside of the conversation that he has no intention of delivering the gift to Vriska next door. The present made for Aradia, a robotic double of her, will be delivered by Equius himself. He plans to use this to gain leadership of the Blue team. Equius also seems to have a totally creepy crush on Aradia. * Equius sees one of his robots as judging him, so he makes an example of it by blasting it out the window with one punch. The robot explodes in the air and it's head falls onto the Catenative Doomsday Dice Cascader, setting it off. * The piece of junk Cascader breaks, two of the chains supporting it break as well. This sends the cascader into the rock pillar that supports Equius' block, where it explodes. The rubble crushes Vriska's lusus. Part of the pillar collapses, ripping Equius' house in two and sending Aurthour plummeting to his doom. * Vriska was pestering Terezi moments before, speaking of a truce that involved no more backstabbing. Vriska states that she has to call the truce off, on account of the fact that they are on opposing teams in the game of Sgrub. * We go to a flashback to a time before Terezi lost her sight and Aradia was still alive. They pester each other about making Vriska pay for what she did to Tavros. they also mention a friend that oversaw the entire situation, and the fact that the friend in question was backstabbing Vriska (as well as vice versa). * Aradia gives in after the voices of the dead urge her to take revenge on Vriska. She summons ghosts to begin haunting Vriska. The Unknown White Text Person chimes in, asking Vriska what she plans to do about it. The conversation foreshadows the idea that Vriska will assault Terezi and Aradia in her own revenge, most likely causing Aradia's death, Terezi's blindness and Vriska's losing an arm and an eye (or seven if you ask her). * Vriska takes the bait. She controls Sollux, forcing him to fly over to Aradia's hive after consuming copious amounts of Mind Honey, presumably causing him to unleash a psychic blast which destroys Aradia's hive. * We are introduced to the First Guardian of Alternia, . We cannot command him in the style we have been using for most of Homestuck. Like any other First Guardian, he is omnipotent, and claims to be employed by . * Terezi contacts Doc Scratch and attempts to tip him off about Vriska. Terezi then consults Vriska, looking for some sort of reason not to kill her. Terezi counter-manipulates her into "consulting her little advantage". Vriska does exactly that, taking a look into her Magic Cue Ball, worried about Terezi's threats. Terezi tells Doc about the cue ball, which infuriates him. He causes the ball to explode, taking out Vriska's eye (as well as her sevenfold vision) and left arm. * Back in the present, Vriska Serket and Equius Zahhak find their Custodians gravely injured from the rock avalance. Equius's Lusus, Aurthour, is dead, and Vriska's Lusus, the giant Alternian spider, is dying. * Vriska decides to kill her custodian out of mercy, and rolls her dice to determine how she will do it. The dice select a giant Guillotine de la Marquise to be used to decapitate the dying Lusus. * The guillotine, unfortunately, triggers an unintended side-effect of causing what's left of the mesa on top of which Equius's hive lies to break and fall. However, Equius appears to transport his hive to The Medium just in time as it is falling. * Vriska gets pissed off and bothers Aradia about ruining her plan to use Equius' present. She basically begs Aradia to stop being so passive about her, and Vriska curses her out big time. * Equius arrives in the Land of Caves and Silence. He contacts Aradia, talking to her about the present and shadow leadership, then takes off, breezing past the first two gates. * Equius arrives at Aradia's house, delivering the bot he created. Aradia enters, only to discover the bot has a chip to alter her emotions so she would fall in love with Equius. She then rips out the heart unit, much to Equius' horror. She wails on him, screams at him and finally...kisses him. * Nepeta watches confusedly as Aradia and Equius make out, then updates her Shipping wall to accommodate the change. Meanwhile, Karkat recruits Vriska. He also forms an alliance with Jack Noir. Jack had stabbed Karkat, although Karkat doesn't seem to mind very much. * Karkat's blood colour is revealed to be a bright candy red, like human blood. This is not only the lowest possible color on the hierarchy, but also considered a mutation. Jack gains Karkat's trust by showing him his own blood color is the same color. * Jack reveals the Black Queen's weakness; that she could not bear to endure the prototyping that would give her the appearance of the frog Aradia used for her initial prototyping. The Queen locked away her Ring of Orbs Twelvefold to avoid it, leaving her vulnerable. Jack and the Red Team initiate Operation Regisurp, a plan that de-thrones the queen and exiles her. She was all set to live out the last of her days in the Alternian deserts, but Doc Scratch had other ideas. * We get a brief overview of the Troll's Medium, and how the two games are actually one due to the MDRV. We are also told that we can't be either cC or cA just yet, so we skip ahead some pages to be gA, whose real name is Kanaya Maryam. * We watch Kanaya go about her day, picking up her chainsaw, which turns into lipstick......oh god not this again. She also has a wardrobifier similar to Jade's, which switches twice before she gets pestered by cC. The conversation reveal that cC is cA's moirail, and that cC is a very excitable and friendly troll despite her noble status. * After this conversation, Kanaya goes to check on her lusus, which is already dead. She heads down to it, then using her lipstick/chainsaw, tears her lusus' carcass open and rips out a Matriorb. * Kanaya stashes the Matriorb in her Chastity Fetch Modus. She quickly samples her lusus' blood due to her fondness for Rainbow Drinkers (vampires), finding it disgusting, whereupon cA chimes in and pesters her. He talks about a "fuckin gizmo to bloww up the wworld or something". He also basically begs Kanaya to auspisticize between him and his moirail, cC. * She heads back to her room to consult one of her sources, which we know to be Rose's Walkthrough. * Tavros enters the medium, taking his place as the Page of Breath in the Land of Sand and Zephyr. * And in time, Vriska finishes building Tavros' hive to the first gate, but to Tavros' dismay, she used stairs to make it physically impossible for Tavros to get to the first gate. Tavros complains and she responds by shaking his wheelchair with the cursor. * As Vriska torments Tavros, Kanaya intervenes by fussing with Vriska's plumbing and bopping Vriska's chair with it. Vriska pleads her innocence but Kanaya knows otherwise thanks to Tavros and threatens to dump the toilet over Vriska's head. Vriska says she'll change the stairs to ramps. * Vriska gets an idea, and quickly runs down to one of her treasure strongholds to acquire a pair of rocket boots. Meanwhile, Kanaya was busy organizing Vriska's room, which Vriska thinks is ridiculous. * Vriska sends the Captchalogue card code of the rocket boots and sends them to Tavros. He in turn alchemizes it with his wheelchair to create a rocketchair, which he uses to fly to the first gate. * Later, Tavros uses his bestial communion abilities to control an army of imps and ogres, which follow him into a ruin topped with lizard statues, where he tries to solve the puzzles of this land. * Vriska, claiming that puzzles are boring, convinces Tavros to skip them and just fly his rocket car into the "seventh" gate right away. Tavros does so, but the gate Vriska pointed to was actually his second gate, which led him into Vriska's house (where he crashed through the wall). * We arrive in the Land of Maps and Treasure where the Thief of Light, Vriska is sleeping. She wakes up upon Tavros' arrival. She is dressed in a gown, complete with fairy wings, and is pretending to be the troll equivalent of Wendy/Tinkerbell for Tavros's Pupa Pan. She does so to mock him, maybe even try to woo him. * After throwing Special Stardust in Tavros' face, she picks him up and makes him have happy thoughts via a rather forced kiss. * Vriska takes a step back, and in her frustration, tries to manipulate Tavros into promptly having feelings for her. She then realizes that she does not want to tamper with Tavros' emotion and gives up. * Kanaya manages to avert some kind of crisis of her own and then goes back to serving Vriska. Poor timing causes her to catch Vriska kissing Tavros, much to her dismay. * Kanaya was shown to have made Vriska's new outfit. Seeing her kiss Tavros crushes her heart. * It is explained that human relationships are very different from Troll Relationships, being that human only have only one concept of a relationship depicted simply by "<3". A troll's understanding of a relationship is divided into four quadrants and depicted by four symbols. These quadrants are shown to be the Flushed Quadrant, the Caliginous Quadrant, the Pale Quadrant, and the Ashen Quadrant. * The two trolls that are a part of the nautical aristocracy are briefly shown, CuttlefishCuller and CaligulasAquarium. * After a bit more exposition to troll romance, we are told that humans, like John, could not grasp this entire concept. However, humans would be able to grasp the concept of destiny, and how each troll believes that one, and only one other troll out there could fill each quadrant (aside from the case of an auspistice, in which case two). * We find out the name of caligulasAquarium is Eridan Ampora, and his lusus is a large mountable seahorse. He is holding what appears to be Ahab's Crosshairs. * After killing a Lusus in the wake from Eridan, the view quickly switches to cuttlefishCuller, real name Feferi Peixes. Feferi got the whale that Eridan killed, and fed it to her gasgaurdian Lusus. * Both trolls go back to their Hives afterwards, where their interests are shown. It seems that Eridan's block is littered with loot plundered from past Flarp sessions, along with the rather obvious fact he hates land dwellers, and wishes to get a doomsday device from somebody. Eridan seems to have a affection with Military History and Legendary Conquerors, though it could just be realated to his hate of land dwellers. He also likes magic, though he knows it's fake anyways. * Feferi, on the other hand, is shown to have 2 horse-maids that look rather familiar, and lots of Cuttlefish. Her blood is somehow higher then the Trolls' Empress, and being the only one with that kind of blood, Feferi's obviously the royal heir. She seems to have 'big' plans for the throne, as well. Her proper introduction of Feferi's culling is said, and she 'culls the fauna of the deep.' She likes capturing cuttlefish for their own good, and also because Feferi describes them as funny and colourful. Feferi runs it like a sort of Wildlife Adoption Facility, though she says it dubious at best, and it's pretty much elaborate amounts of Roleplaying. She also looks forward to using her reign to unite the 2 races. Her computer seems to look like a iPad, though it could just be like Nepeta's Scribblepad Computer. * After five pages of sillyness, Eridan contacts Feferi, and get into a fight. Afterwards, both get try to get a drink. Eridan doesn't get too much luck, because he doesn't want to drink Gamzee's drink, and his fridge is filled with shitty wands. As soon as Feferi tries to open her drink, since she's in underwater, it just get's released into the water. BLUH GLUB. * Both unequip their weapons, and Eridan tries to bother Vriska. Unfourunately, she's busy pages ago with her shitty conflict with her Lusus. * The rivalry Kismesissitude of Vriska and Eridan is shown. They had an alliance with each other in Flarp, wherein Vriska took all of Eridan's victims from his conquest for her piece of shit Lusus, and let Eridan take their guardians to fufill Feferi's Lusus's hunger. If Feferi's Lusus's voice were to be raise above a whisper, trolls would begin dying - first, the lesser bloods, who are "more psychically susceptible;" if it were to shout, all trolls on Alternia would die. If it were to get VERY upset, it'd realease The Vast GLUB, a shockwave that would kill not only all trolls on Alternia, but all trolls in the galaxy. * Sometime later in the future, Feferi, the Witch of Life, gets transported to the Land of Dew and Glass. * Feferi contacts Eridan, appearenty breaking the relationship they had. Eridan seems to be rather crushed by this. Feferi proceeds through her first gate. * Karkat tries to get into contact with Sollux, believing he may be dead due to Feferi's lusus. We're really hoping it's just an overdose of mind honey. Jack.......kinda comforts Karkat while Gamzee just kinda spaces out. * Turns out hey're on Gamzee's planet LOTAM. Eridan tries to cantact them both, Karkat is too upset to reply so Gamzee does. Jack tries to beat some sense back into Karkat. * The trio watches as Feferi kisses Sollux, awakening his dream self. This disgusts Karkat, Jack and Spades Slick who was watching from the terminal at the end of the intermission. Gamzee really doesn't give a shit. * Once more the fourth wall is shattered as AH(now disguised as a troll) goes on about some self loathing as well as a complete overview of Troll romance(as if it wasn't confusing the first time). * The view goes back to Spades, who advances the story a bit. We switch over to Dream Sollux; rather, his Derse dream self. Turns out he has Dream selves in both Prospit and Derse. This makes his statement about dieing twice while still being around in Act 4 (which takes place after this act in the timeline.)) true. Oh, and the real Sollux really is dead.((As if it wasn't obvious.)) * In a small turn of events, Sollux's Dersite dream self blasts himself off Derse to go back to his planet, the Land of Brains and Fire, where he's known as the Mage of Doom. As soon as he goes back into his hive, Feferi sees him while she's trying to fend off the brains, and starts flipping the fuck out. * Meanwhile, both Tavros and Vriska, somewhere in her planet, went off to a island for tresure and more pointless side quests. Vriska finds a chest of Boonbucks, which Tavros woohs over at. * The '8th' exile, finding Vriska completely useless (due to the fact she doesn't respond to the commands) switches over to Terezi, the Seer of Mind in the Land of Thought and Flow. The exile tells Terezi it is time for her to exile Jack Noir. * Meanwhile on Nepeta's planet, the adorable LOLCAT, Nepeta killed a ogre with little ease. She saw Equius, and quickly asked him what happened to Aradia. However, Equius said that she apparntly dissappeared. Category:Acts Category:Homestuck